


Hole in the World

by ArcticBanana



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Brief suggestion of past domestic violence, Coping with Grief, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 08:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11596596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticBanana/pseuds/ArcticBanana
Summary: Avitus is insistently not a feelings kind of guy. Unfortunately holding back negative emotions for so long can only do more harm than good. Hopefully Scott can get him to open up a little before it's too late.





	Hole in the World

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written months ago, probably a week after my first ME: Andromeda fic, but I didn't post it until now because I wasn't completely satisfied with it at the time. I keep re-reading and editing it, but I feel as though every time I attempt to tweak it it loses something, so I'm just going to post it the way it is now and hope I don't regret it in two days. Also the first version of this and the final version are drastically different, so if you notice any continuity errors, they're probably relics from an early draft that I missed in editing.
> 
> See the note at the end for more of my opinion on why I wrote this (it got too long, so I put it after the fic).

**“Where you used to be there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.” -Edna St. Vincent Millay**

* * *

 

(“Ryder, you have received a new email.”)

 

_Pathfinder Ryder,_

_This is Vederia. I wanted to bring to your attention something troubling about Avitus Rix’s behavior lately._

_He seemed like he was okay for the most part when I met him. He’s a little cold and distant from me and Hayjer, but other than that he seemed to be doing his job well enough. Recently though something seems to have changed. He’s stopped talking to anyone. He’s been spending most of his time at the Vortex and ignoring everyone’s calls. We also noticed that he’s falling behind on his job, like he just doesn’t care anymore, and his squad is getting a little frustrated with him. Tann tried to confront him about it and I think Rix lost it and nearly smashed his head through a glass window. It was admittedly kind of satisfying seeing Tann getting taken down a peg, but it’s still worrying nonetheless._

_Hayjer is concerned about him. I’m concerned about him. I think Tann is trying to find a way to remove him as a pathfinder, which will leave the turians without representation and pull some support out from under us. I heard him arguing with Kandros about it. Admittedly Pathfinder Rix has never been an easy going kind of guy, but he was never like this at least. I tried bringing this up with Hayjer, but he’s at as much of a loss as I am. I heard you talking to him before about how he can come to you anytime if he needs someone to talk to. Is that still true?_

_I’m not asking for much. Just please talk to him. And keep some distance between you two, just in case he gets violent. He’s somewhere on the Nexus. He just walked off and hasn’t come back and I don’t know where he went, but he’s well known, so someone must have seen him go somewhere. I’d start at the Vortex._

_-Vederia Damali_

* * *

 

The glow from the monitor burned Scott’s eyes as he read it in the dim light. Once they had adjusted he read it again and then once more. He considered, should he get Vetra and show her? She was busy though. He knew she’d come to his help if he asked for it, but he didn’t want to disturb her when she was already so far behind with everything she needed to do. Instead he found Cora waking up to start her day and brought her back to his room to show her.

“Why are you showing this to me?” she asked once she’d finished reading it. “Why not Vetra?”

“Because Vetra’s busy right now and you’re like having a second sister, so I trust your judgment,” he admitted. “And you also know Avitus. You’ve spoken to him a few times. You would probably know more about this than she would.”

She looked at him and slowly nodded before re-reading it twice herself. “In that case, I think you should definitely talk to him,” she suggested. “This behavior sounds worrying to me.”

“How soon do you think we can get to the Nexus?”

“Hopefully soon enough. I did notice him acting kind of off last time we were there.”

“You don’t think he’ll...” He never finished his sentence. Cora noticed the dire look in his expression but didn’t answer the question he couldn’t bring himself to ask.

Scott didn’t waste time in giving the order. Every minute that passed where they hadn’t arrived yet he worried. He didn’t tell anyone why they were going to the Nexus, not even Vetra, so only Cora and SAM knew what had him so concerned. He kept periodically checking his emails, hoping that he wouldn’t come across one from Vederia stating that it was already too late to help Avitus.

Cora was worried for a different reason. While Scott was concerned that Avitus might hurt himself, she was concerned that he might hurt someone else. Macen had apparently been concerned about his temperament and most Spectres didn’t exactly have the friendliest reputations. What if he was unstable enough that he was a threat to Scott? Though Cora hadn’t quite admitted it to anyone just yet, she similarly had started viewing Scott like a little brother these last couple of months the same way he viewed her like a sister and had half a mind to come with him, just in case. He may have considered Avitus and the other pathfinders to be friends enough to put himself in a dangerous situation to try to help them, but she would be damned if she just sat idly by and let any of them hurt him.

When they finally docked at the Nexus, Scott was the first one off the Tempest. Cora tried to catch up to him, but he was already halfway past security before she even had a chance to see where he went. He barely said a word to anyone he passed, even when they recognized him and called out a respectful greeting to him. He made a beeline straight for the Vortex. The bar was small enough that he could immediately tell that Avitus was not there, but perhaps he had been recently.

“Can we get you anything, Pathfinder?” Anan asked when she saw him approaching. She looked at Dutch and nudged him to get his attention, causing the bartender to groan loudly at the sight of him. Scott was normally a regular there, since like most post-adolescents who were still getting used to the fact that they could now legally drink, he took every chance he came across to get ahold of alcohol. But that wasn’t his purpose here today.

“I’m looking for Pathfinder Rix. Was he in here earlier by any chance?” he inquired.

Dutch made an annoyed sound, suggesting that not only was in there earlier, but that he wouldn’t go away either. “He left a while ago after we cut him off,” Anan answered him. “He seemed angry with us, but then he got into a fight with the chair in the corner and then passed out and pulled a girl’s dress off on the way down, so I think we made the right call.”

“Do you know where he could have gone?”

“Usually the drunks end up passed out in a hallway somewhere,” Dutch stated bluntly. “Eventually someone will trip over him and you’ll find him.”

“Look, it’s imperative that I find him as soon as possible,” Scott insisted.

Anan motioned for someone standing behind him to come up to the bar. At first Scott thought he was in between them and a paying customer, but it turned out that she was waving over one of the bouncers. “Alden, do you by any chance know where the turian Pathfinder went after we asked him to leave?”

The bouncer looked thoughtful a moment. “I think he was headed over to the apartments. Some girl that seemed to know him picked him up. Maybe check there.”

“Thanks!” Scott said gratefully.

“Come back if you can’t find him!” Anan shouted over the loud music.

Avitus clearly wasn’t passed out in the hall at the apartments. Scott ran a scan to see if he had even been there before continuing his search of the area. “Pathfinder, it is highly probable that Avitus Rix has been here,” SAM confirmed when the scan turned up trace evidence of spilled turian horosk and dextro-based vomit that had since been cleaned up.

“Okay. So where is he now?”

Scott found himself in another conundrum. The DNA evidence only proved that he had been in the hall, not which apartment he was in, if he was even still there. What if he had been there but had since left already? It was super important that he found him in a timely manner, so he guessed the only thing to do was to knock on each door and hope that someone answered that knew where he was.

He ended up interrupting a couple of friends who were playing video games while clearly stoned off their gourds on something, a really cranky old lady who threw a magazine at him and shut the door afterwards, an asari who confused him for a delivery boy she’d been waiting for for two hours now, and two people who were currently being intimate that proceeded to invite him to join them. He politely declined and backed away slowly before moving onto the next apartment.

Before he could even knock on the door, it opened on a sensor. One half of the amorous pair next door told him, “I’d steer clear of that guy if I were you. He’s a bit of an ass,” before disappearing back inside.

“Something tells me we found him,” Scott said to SAM.

The interior was dark. Scott tried to flip a switch but the lights seemed to have been remotely disabled. The only light in the room came from the glow of a dim blue light along the wall above a series of shelves, illuminating various knickknacks and a framed holo of a female turian holding some kind of hairless cat-like animal, likely the apartment’s primary resident and her former pet. The air smelled fermented and he kicked over an empty can of dextro beer on the way in. He didn’t even need to look at the turian in the room to realize that clearly he had indeed found him. Scott wondered if the door had been unlocked because Avitus had simply forgotten to lock it or if his friend hacked it to prevent it from locking out of fear of what he might do to himself while he was alone behind a closed door. Speaking of, the aforementioned friend seemed to be nowhere to be found and he wondered where she might be.

The turian former Spectre-turned-Pathfinder was sprawled across a couch, half clothed, surrounded by empty bottles, and smelling strongly of spilled alcoholic drinks. Scott suddenly realized exactly why the other Pathfinders were concerned about him and why Tann was beginning to look down on him. Avitus clearly looked like someone who spent his free time locked in his personal quarters and refusing to even eat.

Avitus was asleep until he heard Scott accidentally kick the can and startled awake, the sudden fear response eliminating any sleepiness he might have still had in him. His mandibles abruptly dropped when he recognized Scott in the dim lighting and he rolled over onto his stomach, face towards the corner of the couch, as though trying to hide from him.

“Hey Rix,” he said. He pushed some of the empty bottles on the coffee table aside to make room for himself to sit. “Everyone’s worried about you and they want me to check in on you.”

The sudden loud huff that Avitus made startled him and Scott couldn’t help but compare the sound to that of an irritated grizzly bear. “Go. Away.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you’re alright.”

“Well I’m not, so don’t waste your time.”

“I know you’re not, and that’s why I want to talk.” Avitus caught him off guard when he swiftly sat up and growled at him. If his huff had sounded like a grizzly bear, his growling brought to mind a very pissed off leopard. “Avitus, I’m not here to start something with you.”

“Then why _are_ you here?!”

Scott leaned back away from him as though in anticipation of a punch to the face. “Because I care?”

Avitus silenced his growling. “Why?” he asked. His question sounded less like a challenge and more like genuine confusion. “Why do you care about me at all? You barely even know me.”

“Because the worst possible thing that could ever happen to someone happened to you, and clearly you aren’t taking it well at all,” Scott pointed out.

Avitus looked offended, but then clearly dropped it a second later. “Have you ever lost someone you cared about?” he asked.

“My mother,” Scott stated bluntly. “My father. Almost lost my sister. I had to leave behind my ten year old dog, who is now obviously 600 years dead.”

“Oh,” Avitus replied. “I’m...sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve had time to come to terms with it,” he nodded. “But what about you?”

“You only have to look around to answer that for yourself.” As if to punctuate that, Scott accidentally kicked over a can of beer that was just under the table and wasn’t quite empty. The look on Avitus’ face suggested he’d still been drinking that and was pissed that it was spilled on the floor now.

“Rix,” Scott sighed. “I heard you’ve been blowing off your appointments with your counselor. Can I ask why?”

“Because I don’t want to go talk to some bitch who will only spend the whole day asking questions like ‘how are you feeling now?’ or ‘do you want to kill yourself?’ and then try to medicate me,” Avitus replied bluntly.

The look on Scott’s face was a little more dire. “Has this happened to you before, Avitus?” he asked. “You sound like you’re speaking from a bad experience.”

“Look, I already told you, I don’t want to talk. I’m not a feelings guy!”

“Then you don’t have to talk,” Scott reassured him. “But you don’t have to be alone, either.”

The subtle twitch of Avitus’ mandibles did not go unnoticed. Countless interactions with his girlfriend had taught Scott to always watch a turian’s mandibles if you wanted to gauge their reactions. They seemed to involuntarily twitch if the individual was taken by surprise, which indicated that Avitus had not been expecting his supportive response.

Avitus moved his legs over onto the other end of the couch directly under him. “Sit over here. Vaira doesn’t like it when people sit on the table.”

Scott wasn’t sure who “Vaira” was other than probably the apartment’s rightful resident, but she must have been awfully lenient with Avitus to allow him to crash drunk and half naked on the couch, surrounded by bottles and cans, some of which had been spilled, making sitting on the table seem like a moot point. He moved to the couch next to Avitus anyway. At least he didn’t seem as aggressive as he was previously.

“How did you know I was here, anyway?” Avitus asked. “I didn’t tell anyone where I went and few people know I know Vaira.”

“Well a friend asked me to check on you for them, and the bouncer at the Vortex told me you were probably over here somewhere, and I kind of met the neighbors knocking on every door trying to find you.”

“They didn’t say anything about me did they?” he asked, looking alarmed. “I might have thrown a bottle of horosk at their door because they were keeping me up last night...”

“Nah, they didn’t say anything about you,” Scott lied.

“Probably too busy keeping everyone else up to have even noticed,” he mumbled.

“So what are you doing here, Avitus?”

“Vaira is...was...Macen’s goddaughter. I’ve known her since she was small. She found me and let me stay here,” he replied.

“No, I mean what are you doing here?” Scott repeated. “You shouldn’t be isolating yourself like this. It’s not good for you.”

“I just needed to get away,” he replied. “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and no one would leave me alone, so I needed to leave for a while.”

“They wouldn’t leave you alone because they were concerned about you.”

“Yeah, well forgive me, but when you want nothing more than a few hours to yourself everyday to grieve in peace, it’s not really helping to have people keep storming into your room and invading your privacy so they can ask you if you want to talk.”

Scott sighed. “What happened since we last talked?” Avitus cocked his head in a quizzical manner at the question. “You seemed to be handling this surprisingly well, or as well as you could, but now you’re obviously not okay.”

Avitus started fiddling with an empty can, crushing it repeatedly this way and that until the sides had busted open and turned into sharp edges. He didn’t even seem to notice that he’d cut himself on it until he looked at it and saw smears of blue on the silver surface.

“I guess I was never okay,” he admitted. “I was just good at hiding it.” He threw the can across the room and wiped the blood off on a blanket hanging off the side of the couch. “I...I don’t know what happened. One minute I was going through my...our things, and then the next...I ended up here.”

“Did you find something when you were going through your stuff, maybe?”

“Everything...” he nodded. “I can’t believe the kind of shit Macen thought was worth bringing. A box of holos. Several notes I wrote him over the years, including some just telling him to go get dish soap. Stupid shit like that.”

“Obviously it wasn’t stupid to Macen if he thought it was worth taking.”

Avitus made a noncommittal sound in response. “I guess...” They sat in silence, during which Scott could hear Avitus sniffling a little bit. “I...I tried not to think about him too much because I knew how much it would upset me, but after seeing all of those holos of us I couldn’t stop thinking about him. How he sometimes pushed me off the bed at night, or the time he got us lost on a seven hour detour because he was really bad at asking for directions, or that cute sound he made whenever I had him pinned to the wall...” Avitus noticed the look on Scott’s face and added, “That last part was too much information, wasn’t it?”

“Just a little,” he nodded. “So...seven hour detour?”

“Through a desert...and then they made him a Pathfinder...”

Avitus must have secretly wanted to talk to someone for far longer than either of them realized because the next two hours or so was spent listening while Avitus reminisced about his favorite memories of Macen. Some of them delved into a little too much information, in which case Scott tried not to cringe too much as he learned more about Avitus and Macen’s personal kinks than he cared to know, while others were far more amusing, like the time Macen jumped off a two story balcony onto a krogan’s back to help Avitus win a fight.

Then things took a dark twist and he started recalling the bad. He was particularly haunted by a memory of a fight that escalated to him punching Macen in the face for calling him a “drunk, belligerent asshole”, only to realize a second later upon seeing the hurt and betrayed look on Macen’s face that he really was a drunk, belligerent asshole. It had taken a Palaven week for Macen to forgive him or even talk to him again and during that time Avitus had sunk into a depression from worry that he had just destroyed their relationship.

He promised Macen he’d never let himself get that drunk again. He’d be horrified with him if he were still alive to see him right now.

“I never drank anything after that, not to that extent, anyway. We sometimes shared a beer or something but I never let myself get that violent with him again. You probably noticed, but I don’t handle my alcohol well at all.”

“You’re an alcoholic, Rix. So was my uncle, but he got help for it. You can too, but you need to be willing to talk to someone about it.”

The speed with which Avitus snapped his head up to look at him startled him into thinking maybe he’d triggered a violent response by calling him an alcoholic. Scott slid back from the turian, worried that he might attack him, but the hard, pissed off look on Avitus’ face suddenly softened like he was tired of trying to intimidate others away from him.

“I am an alcoholic,” he admitted like it was the most painful thing he’d said all night. He paused, allowing the comment to sink in. “You’re really cute for a human, did you know that?” Avitus suddenly asked him. His tone sounded surprisingly affectionate considering his usual emotionally-stunted temperament and former aggression. Scott wondered if this was the side of him that Macen usually saw, minus the influence of alcohol. “I don’t even know how you manage it. You’re just always so friendly and optimistic, even when people treat you like shit or get in your way.”

“I get upset sometimes too. I have friends to fall back on when things get rough,” Scott pointed out, “friends that care about me.”

“I used to have that,” he nodded. “I was a Spectre. I was respected. There were turian kids who looked up to me, even though they shouldn’t. I’m an awful person and not a very good role model.”

“Don’t tell yourself that,” Scott scolded him. “Macen didn’t think you were an awful person.”

“Macen wasn’t a Spectre. If he knew half the shit I did to people, he would never have spoken to me again.”

Scott noticed that Avitus sounded seconds away from crying. “Are you okay, Avitus?”

“No,” Avitus admitted. “Macen was the only bit of sanity I had to cling to. He knew I did horrible things as a Spectre, but he never bothered to ask. I don’t think he wanted to know. I came here with him because I wanted to forget about everything I’ve done and start over with him.” He started tearing up and reached for one of the bottles on the side table next to the couch, but found them all to be empty. “We were supposed to find a home here. We were going to have kids and pets and just live out the rest of our life together with just us and our family. And now he’s gone. I don’t have anything else to live for out here.”

“Avitus...I’m really sorry. I can’t even pretend to know what you’re going through right now,” Scott apologized.

“Sometimes when I’m alone, I swear I hear him.”

“Now that I understand. I hear my mother sometimes. It’s almost like she’s still there.”

Avitus wiped tears out of his eyes and stared at the floor. They sat there for maybe twelve or thirteen minutes in silence while the turian attempted to regain his composure. Scott slowly slid a hand onto his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, reassuring him that he was still there while he calmed himself. Avitus finally looked back up at Scott and held his gaze for a moment. Scott noted something in his eyes, akin to exhaustion and desperation and a worrying desire to somehow end this emotional pain he’d been subjected to on a day to day basis.

Scott was taken by surprise when Avitus suddenly grabbed either side of his face and planted his mouth on his. He knew he should probably push him away but oddly couldn’t bring himself to do so while the turian was still in a fragile emotional state. He wondered if Avitus was still intoxicated and unaware of what he was getting himself into or if he was sobered up by now and just didn’t care anymore. Part of Scott’s brain reminded him of Vetra and the other part strangely didn’t care that Avitus was kissing him.

When he finally released him, Avitus looked sincerely apologetic. “I’m...I’m sorry,” he said before hanging his head low in shame and staring at the floor once more. “I don’t know why I did that. It’s just that...I meant everything I said about you earlier, and some days it seems like you, Hayjer, and Vederia are the only people who still respect me and I can’t figure out why you’d even have a reason to.”

“You’re still in mourning and don’t know how to react. I get that,” Scott replied.

Rix started tearing up again and looked away. “I miss him.”

“And you always will. And that’s okay. Eventually you’ll find out how to function again. It might take a while and it might seem like that will never happen right now, but I promise you it will happen if you just give yourself a chance.”

He risked giving him a hug, a gesture which seemed greatly appreciated by the other Pathfinder. He didn’t expect Avitus to hold it as long as he did, but the man seemed greatly starved for affectionate contact and unwilling to let go right away.

“Hey, I...know you’re already seeing someone, so I won’t do something like that again,” Avitus promised when he finally let go. Scott wondered where he heard about Vetra and wondered if Sid had made it public knowledge on the Nexus. Vetra was going to kill her if she did. “But thank you for not pushing me away.”

“Anytime, Avitus. I’m still available as a friend if you need anything,” Scott replied, clapping a hand over Avitus’ bicep.

Avitus nodded. “I think I need to sober up more and get back to my team, so I’ll let you go,” he said. “And I probably should clean this mess up before Vaira gets home because she’s already upset with me for pissing in the kitchen sink last night when I was too disoriented to find the bathroom.”

“The kitchen sink?”

“Yeah. Right on the dishes...I’m amazed I didn’t get kicked out right then and there...” Scott looked over his shoulder and saw the bathroom from where he was sitting. Its location meant that Avitus would have had to walk right past it to get to the kitchen. “I’ll likely take you up on that offer and call you later, though.”

When the door closed behind Scott, he felt an overwhelming wave of emotion wash over him. No one should ever have to go through something like that, and despite the fact that his pep talk may have helped, he still worried about Avitus. More so, a different kind of feeling came over him, one that made him quickly walk away and hurry towards the Tempest.

A female turian walked by and headed towards the room he had just moments ago come out of. “Hi,” she nodded to him, not really taking note of who he was or where he had come from. Vaira, he guessed when he heard her shouting about the huge mess upon stepping through the door.

He passed Cora, who seemed to be waiting for him anxiously. “Well?” she asked when she saw him walking by.

“I found him,” Scott replied. “I think he’s okay for now. Macen’s goddaughter is looking after him, so he’s not alone.” She nodded and allowed him to continue on by.

Scott found Vetra speaking to someone about some rations she wanted to trade over her com in the docking bay, where she usually was when they were docked at the Nexus. He waited patiently for her to hang up. “Scott?” she said once she cut communications with the other person.

He didn’t care that there were a million other people in the area and that the angarans were the only ones that didn’t look their way when he pulled her into a tight, forceful hug. “I know I don’t ever say this to you enough, but I love you,” he told her.

“Is everything okay?” she asked with concern.

“I’ll tell you about it later. Just...don’t go anywhere.”

“I didn’t plan on it,” she pointed out, not realizing that it wasn’t the idea of her walking away from him that he was concerned about.

_Two weeks later..._

Vetra was still in bed with him when he woke up. Now that the crew had made it clear that they both knew about and approved of their relationship, she didn’t always insist on leaving before the day shift started anymore. He was glad because after the kinds of nightmares he’d had lately, he needed some reassurance that she was still alive and well.

“Ryder, I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but there’s an email waiting for you that I think you would want to see,” SAM informed him.

“Thanks, SAM,” Scott whispered.

Carefully he got out from under Vetra, being mindful of how her sharp claws scraped across his chest as he pushed her arm off, and went to check the email. There was another email from Vederia at the top of the stack.

_Ryder, I don’t know what you said or did to Rix, but it seems to have worked, for now at least. I think he scared the shit out of Tann the other day when he walked into the room and saw him sitting there with Hayjer, eating actual substantial food again. I think Tann might be afraid of him now after that whole “almost smashed your head through a window” thing. I did catch him sneaking a shot early this morning, but he’s still far more sober than he’s been._

_He seems a little different ever since you talked to him too. Before he kept his distance but now it seems almost like he’s open to the idea of being friends with Hayjer and me. I guess maybe he realizes he needs some kind of support net just in case he falls off again._

_Anyway, thank you for everything you’ve done to help him. I heard him talking about you to Hayjer and he had nothing but good things to say about you._

_-Vederia Damali_

 

“Scott…?” a sleepy voice called his name. “What are you doing up?”

“Just checking my emails,” he replied.

Vetra immediately noticed that his tone seemed a little relieved and wondered if he had received good news of some sort. “It’s too early. Come back to bed,” she urged him.

“In a minute.” He quickly forwarded the email to Cora, knowing she would have wanted to see the conclusion to this.

Vetra fell asleep almost instantly when he got back in next to her, content with knowing that he was still close. Thankfully it wasn’t long until the day shift because he personally couldn’t sleep anymore.

 _He’s alright,_ he thought gratefully. Hopefully he wouldn’t end up like he did again, but if he did, at least Avitus knew he was welcome to turn to him for help this time. He just hoped that he would indeed take him up on that offer.

**Author's Note:**

> So I have no idea why I latched onto Avitus as a favored minor character as much as I did, though looking through the rest of the Andromeda fanfiction, it seems like I'm not really the only one. Maybe I favor him because like Avitus I'm also a member of the LGBT community so part of me likes having a badass representation such as a Spectre who is also gay. (That reason is also why I don't view my protagonists, whether they be Shepard or Ryder, as completely straight- I personally view Shepard as pansexual and Ryder as bi, to be honest.)
> 
> Unfortunately, despite my adoration of the character, I feel that Avitus is underutilized and poorly explored and also shows some of the issues the game has with LGBT characters. Macen should have for all intents and purposes been just as much of a badass as he was, if only we knew more about him other than "Blackwatch, Pathfinder, also gay" before he died because of course the gay character dies. The gay character always dies.
> 
> Their relationship seems more like it was added purely for shock value and to give Macen's death more impact, and I don't feel it was handled all that well. First of all, I know Avitus doesn't like to display his emotions, but his boyfriend just died. Most people would lose it and become inconsolable, yet his only reaction seems to be "Well crap! Now what?" and his initial concerns seem to be more like he's upset that now he has to be a pathfinder rather than upset at the fact that his partner of many years is dead. I'm not asking for a complete breakdown, just for Avitus to show some sign that he cares about Macen as much as Macen clearly cared about him. He does show some hint of emotion later, but the reaction still seems jarring compared to how the audience is probably feeling at the discovery.
> 
> There's also some things they seem to hint at that they could have explored a little more. Avitus says he isn't a feelings guy. Why do I get the feeling that he's bottling up all of his feelings because something happened in his past that made him afraid to express his emotions? He seems to have anger issues by Macen's indication, which is a classic sign of someone who refuses to talk about what's bothering them until they've hit the breaking point and snapped. He also seems to be an implied alcoholic- more obvious if he doesn't become a pathfinder, but even then he seems to carry alcohol with him in a flask wherever he goes. I also wonder if Avitus was ever actually out of the closet. He seems almost embarrassed to admit to you that Macen is his partner, to the point you wouldn't even know they were together if you didn't pay attention to the context, and it seems almost like Macen was trying to gently coax him out by taking him to Andromeda. It makes me wonder if turian society is not so accepting of homosexuality and this was the only way they could both be open without getting harassed.
> 
> Hopefully if there's a sequel (and please let there be one), they'll touch on Avitus and the other pathfinders a bit more. Ryder may have wrapped up his part, but their stories feel far from complete.


End file.
